With Yogi, Never A Disappointment

Steady Berra's Always On Course

CROMWELL — According to childhood buddy Joe Garagiola, Yogi Berra got his nickname because ``he walked like a yogi.''

A yogi, of course, is a person who practices yoga, which is essentially feeling good about putting your knees behind your head.

Yogi walks with a bit of a limp these days. Just a bit. Could have been the, uh, yoga. Could have been the 2,100-plus games he played, most squatting behind the plate, during a Hall of Fame career with the Yankees. Could have been his age, 72, which does not account for the years Billy Martin was around.

Whatever. Yogi has a slight limp and he uses two caddies. One drives his cart. The other steps off his yardage and fetches his clubs. They were his entourage as the Canon Greater Hartford Open opened in earnest on Wednesday with the Celebrity Pro-Am.

The wife of former New York Mayor John Lindsay once told Yogi he looked cool in his summer suit, to which Yogi responded, ``Thanks. You don't look so hot yourself.''

And that is how Yogi was this warm day. He is 5 feet 8 and just under his playing weight at 185. A man's belt rises or falls as he ages, and for Yogi the buckle has risen -- but just slightly. He wore a white GHO shirt, buttoned fashionably to the neck, khaki slacks and black-and-white saddle shoes. On his crown was a white baseball cap that had his famous saying stitched into the front: ``It Ain't Over Till It's Over!!!''

Going from hole to hole, he collected fans. By the 18th, there were hundreds on his trail, most of them white-haired or balding men with their grandchildren.

``Greatest catcher of all time,'' murmured the grandparents.

``He's cute,'' said the granddaughters.

This is how Yogi spends part of his summers, on the celebrity golf circuit. Although he sometimes yanks one off the heel, he usually hits everything dead straight with his right-handed swing. His drives can go 200 yards. He has great hands.

He has a bad rap about being cool to autograph seekers at these tournaments. He doesn't stop to accommodate the huge throng on 18, but he takes time at every tee to sign as many items as he can, to pose for every picture he can, without disrupting his group.

People come ready. One guy had a bag of memorabilia and tried to hit Yogi for a signature on one knickknack or another at every opportunity. Yogi would oblige after the kids with the baseballs were finished.

He gave his group its money's worth. He signed his caddies' tunics and caps. He signed anything put in front of him by his amateur playing partners. He told one of his sandtrapped mates, ``You shoulda wore shorts, you're on the beach so much.'' He said to another, ``I have seen that eyes opened is best.''

He almost hit the pro in the group, David Ogrin, with a tee shot on No. 12. Yogi signed Ogrin's cap.

``Boy, he is a gentleman,'' Ogrin said. ``He's like a lot people who grew up in the Depression, who didn't have a lot, who maybe didn't finish high school and didn't get a chance at college, who worked for everything he has ever gotten. These kind of people have an ingrained ethic in life that is different than what we have now in our modern world. They show responsibility, they respect people who show them respect, they let transgressions roll off their backs.

``That is Yogi. You could see as the round wore on, as our gallery got bigger, as the beers began flowing, as a few of the fans were yelling stuff at him at every turn -- it just rolled off him like water down a duck's back.''

People kept screaming, ``It ain't over till it's over.''

Yogi shrugged and said, ``Sometimes, it's over.''

After tapping in at 18 to ahuge ovation and shaking hands all around, he followed his escort of marshals up the hill and into the clubhouse, through a gauntlet of people shoving signable trinkets in his face.